[His
life was written in Latin by F. Turselin, in six books, first printed at Rome in
1594. The same author translated into Latin, and published in 1596, the saint's
letters, in four books. The life of this saint was also composed by F. Orlandino
in the history of the Society: in Italian, by F. Bartoli: also, by F. Maffei: in
Portuguese, by Luzena, and in Spanish, by F. Garcia. See likewise F.
Nieremberg's illustrious men: the modern histories of India especially that of
Jarrio; Solia's history of Japan; Lewis de Guzman's Spanish history of the
Missions to the East Indies, China, and Japan, and Ferdinand Mendez Pinto's
Travels in Portuguese. From these and other sources is the life of St. Francis
Xavier elegantly compiled in French by the judicious and eloquent F. Bonhours,
published in English by Dryden, in 1688. See also Maffei, Histor. Indicar. lib.
xv. F. Ribadeneira; F. Charlevoix, Hist. de Japan. Lafiteau, Decouvertes et
Conquestes des Indes Orientales par les Portugais.]

A charge to go and preach to all nations was given by Christ to his apostles.
This commission the pastors of the church have faithfully executed down to this
present time; and in every age have men been raised by God and filled with his
Holy Spirit for the discharge of this important function who, being sent by the
authority of Christ and his name by those who have succeeded the apostles in the
government of his church, have brought new nations to the fold of Christ for the
advancement of the divine honour, and filling up the number of the saints. This
conversion of nations according to the divine commission is the prerogative of
the Catholic Church, in which it has never had any rival. Among those who in the
sixteenth century laboured most successfully in this great work, the most
illustrious was St. Francis Xavier, the Thaumaturgus of these later ages, whom
Urban VIII justly styled the Apostle of the Indies. This great saint was born in
Navarre, at the castle of Xavier, eight leagues from Pampelona, in 1506. His
mother was heiress of the two illustrious houses of Azpilcueta and Xavier, and
his father, Don John de Jasso, was one of the chief counsellors of state to John
III d'Albret, King of Navarre. Among their numerous family of children, of which
Francis was the youngest, those that were elder bore the surname of Azpilcueta,
the younger that of Xavier. Francis was instructed in the Latin tongue under
domestic masters, and grounded in religious principles in the bosom of his pious
parents. From his infancy he was of a complying, winning humour, and discovered
a good genius and a great propensity to learning, to which of his own motion he
turned himself, whilst all his brothers embraced the profession of arms. His
inclination determined his parents to send him to Paris in the eighteenth year
of his age; where he entered the college of St. Barbara, and commencing a course
of scholastic philosophy, with incessant pains and incredible ardour, surmounted
the first difficulties of the crabbed and subtle questions with which the
entrance to logic was paved. His faculties were hereby opened, and his
penetration and judgment exceedingly improved; and the applause which he
received agreeably flattered his vanity, which passion he was not aware of,
persuading himself that to raise his fortune in the world was a commendable
pursuit. Having studied philosophy for two years he proceeded master of arts;
then taught philosophy at Beauvais college, though he still lived in that of St.
Barbara.

St. Ignatius came to Paris in 1528 with a view to finish his studies, and
after some time entered himself pensioner in the college of St. Barbara. This
holy man had conceived a desire of forming a society wholly devoted to the
salvation of souls; and being taken with the qualifications of Peter Faber,
called in French Le Fevre, a Savoyard, and Francis Xavier, who had been
school-fellows, and still lived in the same college, endeavoured to gain their
concurrence in this holy project. Faber, who was not enamoured of the world,
resigned himself without opposition. But Francis, whose head was full of
ambitious thoughts, made a long and vigorous resistance, and bantered and
rallied Ignatius on all occasions, ridiculing the meanness and poverty in which
he lived as a degenerate lowness of soul. Ignatius repaid his contempt with
meekness and kindness, and continued to repeat sometimes to him, "What will
it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" This made
no impression on one who was dazzled with vainglory and, under presences, joined
false maxims of worldly decency in his idea of Christian virtue. Ignatius
assaulting him on the weaker side, often congratulated him for his talents and
learning, applauded his lectures and made it his business to procure him
scholars; also on a certain occasion when he was in necessity, he furnished him
with money. Francis, having a generous soul, was moved with gratitude, and
considered that Ignatius was of great birth, and that only the fear of God had
inspired him with the choice of the life which he led. He began, therefore, to
look on Ignatius with other eyes, and to hearken to his discourses. At that time
certain emissaries of the Lutherans secretly scattered their errors among the
students at Paris, in so dexterous a manner as to make them appear plausible,
and Xavier, who was naturally curious, took pleasure in hearing these novelties,
till Ignatius put him upon his guard. Sometime after this, having one day found
Xavier more than ordinarily attentive, he repeated to him these words more
forcibly than ever, "What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul?" and remonstrated that so noble a soul ought not to
confine itself to the vain honours of this world, that celestial glory was the
only object for his ambition, and that it was against reason not to prefer that
which is eternally to last before what vanishes like a dream. Xavier then began
to see into the emptiness of earthly greatness, and to find himself powerfully
touched with the love of heavenly things. Yet it was not without many serious
thoughts and grievous struggles that his soul was overcome by the power of those
eternal truths, and he took a resolution of squaring his life entirely by the
most perfect maxims of the gospel. For this purpose he gave himself up to the
conduct of Ignatius; and the direction of so enlightened a guide made the paths
of perfection easy to him. From his new master he learned that the first step in
his conversion was to subdue his predominant passion, and that vainglory was his
most dangerous enemy. His main endeavours, therefore, were bent from that time
to humble himself and confound his pride. And, well knowing that the interior
victory over our own heart and its passions is not to be gained without
mortifying the flesh and bringing the senses into subjection, he undertook this
conquest by hair cloth, fasting, and other austerities.

When the time of the vacancy was come, in 1535, he performed St. Ignatius's
spiritual exercises; in which such was his fervour that he passed four days
without taking any nourishment, and his mind was taken up day and night in the
contemplation of heavenly things. By these meditations, which sunk deep into his
soul, he was wholly changed into another man, in his desires, affections, and
views; so that afterwards he did not know himself, and the humility of the cross
appeared to him more amiable than all the glories of this world. In the most
profound sentiments of compunction he made a general confession, and formed a
design of glorifying God by all possible means, and of employing his whole life
for the salvation of souls. The course of philosophy which he read, and which
had lasted three years and a half, according to the custom of those times, being
completed, by the counsel of Ignatius, he entered on the study of divinity. In
1534, on the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, St. Ignatius and his six
companions, of whom Francis was one, made a vow at Montmarte to visit the Holy
Land and unite their labours for the conversion of the infidels; or, if this
should be found not practicable, to cast themselves at the feet of the pope and
offer their services wherever he thought fit to employ them. Three others
afterwards joined these six, and having ended their studies the year following,
these nine companions departed from Paris upon the 15th of November, in 1536, to
go to Venice, where St. Ignatius had agreed to meet them from Spain. They
travelled all through Germany on foot, loaded with their writings, in the midst
of winter, which that year was very sharp and cold. Xavier, to overcome his
passions and punish himself for the vanity he had formerly taken in leaping (for
he was very active and had been fond of such corporal exercises), in the
fervency of his soul had tied his arms and thighs with little cords which, by
his travelling, swelled his thighs and sunk so deep into the flesh as to be
hardly visible. The saint bore the pain with incredible patience till he fainted
on the road; and not being able to go any further was obliged to discover the
reason. His companions carried him to the next town, where the surgeon declared
that no incision could be safely made deep enough, and that the evil was
incurable. In this melancholy situation, Faber, Laynex, and the rest spent that
night in prayer; and the next morning Xavier found the cords broken out of the
flesh. The holy company joined in actions of thanksgiving to the Almighty, and
cheerfully pursued their journey in which Xavier served the rest on all
occasions, being always beforehand with them in the duties of charity. They
arrived at Venice on the 8th of January 1537, and were much comforted to meet
there St. Ignatius, by whose direction they divided themselves to serve the poor
in two hospitals in that city, whilst they waited for an opportunity to embark
for Palestine.

Xavier, who was placed in the hospital of the incurables, employed the day in
dressing the sores of the sick, in making their beds, and serving them in meaner
offices, and passed whole nights in watching by them. It was his delight chiefly
to attend those who were sick of contagious distempers or infected with
loathsome ulcers. Two months had passed away in these exercises of charity, when
St. Ignatius, who stayed behind alone at Venice, sent his companions to Rome to
ask the blessing of his holiness Paul III for their intended voyage. The pope
granted those among them who were not in holy orders, a licence to receive them
at the hands of any Catholic bishop. Upon their return to Venice, Xavier was
ordained priest upon St. John Baptist's day, in 1537, and they all made vows of
chastity and poverty before the pope's nuncio. Xavier retired to a village about
four miles from Padua where, to prepare himself for saying his first mass, he
spent forty days in a poor, ruined, abandoned cottage, exposed to all the
injuries of the weather, lay on the ground, fasted rigorously, and subsisted on
what scraps of bread he begged from door to door. St. Ignatius having caused all
his company to resort to Vicenza, Xavier, after this retreat, repaired thither
and said there his first mass with tears flowing in such abundance that his
audience could not refrain from mixing their own with his. By order of St.
Ignatius he applied himself to the exercises of charity and devotion at Bologna,
to the great edification of that city. The house in which he there dwelt as a
poor man was afterwards given to the society and converted into an oratory of
great devotion.

In Lent, in 1538, our saint was called by St. Ignatius to Rome, where the
fathers assembled together to deliberate about the foundation of their Order,
and their consultations were accompanied by fervent prayers, tears, watchings
and penitential austerities, which they practiced with a most ardent desire of
pleasing our Lord alone, and of seeking in all things his greater glory and the
good of souls. After waiting a whole year to find an opportunity of passing into
Palestine, and finding execution of that design impracticable on account of the
war between the Venetians and the Turks, St. Ignatius and his company offered
themselves to his holiness to be employed as he should judge most expedient in
the service of their neighbour. The pope accepted their offer, and ordered them
to preach and instruct in Rome till he should otherwise employ them. St. Francis
exercised his functions in the Church of St. Laurence, in Damaso, in which he
appeared so active that no one distinguished himself by a more ardent charity or
a more edifying zeal. Govea, a Portuguese, formerly president of the college of
St. Barbara, at Paris, happened to be then at Rome whither John III, King of
Portugal, had sent him on some important business. He had formerly known
Ignatius, Xavier, and Faber at Paris, and been a great admirer of their virtue;
and he became more so at Rome, insomuch that he wrote to his master that men so
learned, humble, charitable, inflamed with zeal, indefatigable in labour, lovers
of the cross, and who aimed at nothing but the honour of God, were fit to be
sent to plant the faith in the East Indies. The king wrote thereupon to Don
Pedro Mascaregnas, his ambassador at Rome, and ordered him to obtain six of
these apostolic men for this mission. St. Ignatius could grant him only two, and
pitched upon Simon Rodriguez, a Portuguese, and Nicholas Bobadilla, a Spaniard.
The former went immediately by sea to Lisbon; Bobadilla, who waited to accompany
the ambassador, fell sick, and by an overruling supernatural direction, Francis
Xavier was substituted in his room on the day before the ambassador began his
journey. Our saint received this order with joy, and when he went to ask the
benediction of Paul III, there shone, through a profound humility, such a
magnanimity of soul that his holiness took from thence a certain presage of the
wonderful events which followed. The saint left Rome with the ambassador on the
15th of March 1540, and on the road found perpetual occasion for the most heroic
actions of humility, mortification, charity, zeal, and piety, and was always
ready to serve his fellow-travellers in the meanest offices, as if he had been
everybody's servant. The journey was performed all the way by land, over the
Alps and Pyrenees, and took up more than three months. At Pampelona, the
ambassador pressed the saint to go to the castle of Xavier, which was but a
little distant from the road, to take leave of his mother, who was yet living,
and of his other friends, whom he would probably never more see in this world.
But the saint would by no means turn out of the road, saying that he deferred
the sight of his relations till he should visit them in heaven; that this
transient view would be accompanied with melancholy and sadness, the products of
last farewells, whereas their meeting in heaven would be for eternity and
without the least alloy of sorrow. This wonderful disengagement from the world
exceedingly affected Mascaregnas who, by the saintly example and instructions of
the holy man, was converted to a new course of life.

They arrived at Lisbon about the end of June, and Francis went immediately to
F. Rodriguez, who was lodged in a hospital, in order to attend and instruct the
sick. They made this place their ordinary abode, but catechized and instructed
in most parts of the town, and were taken up all Sundays and holidays in hearing
confessions at court; for the king and a great number of the courtiers were
engaged by their discourses to confess and communicate every week, which they
chose to do at their hands. F. Rodriguez was retained by the king at Lisbon, and
St. Francis was obliged to stay there eight months, while the fleet was getting
ready to sail in spring. Dr. Martin d'Azpilcueta, commonly called the Doctor of
Navarre, who was uncle to Xavier by his mother's side, was then chief professor
of divinity at Coimbra, and wrote several letters to our saint, but could not
engage him to go to Coimbra. St. Francis, when he left Rome, put a memorial in
the hands of F. Laynez, in which he declared that he approved the rules that
should be drawn up by Ignatius, and consecrated himself to God by the vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience, in the Society of Jesus, when it should be
confirmed as a religious Order by the apostolic see. At Lisbon, before he went
on board, the king delivered to him four briefs from the pope; in two of which
his holiness constituted Xavier apostolic nuncio, with ample power and
authority; in the third he recommended him to David, Emperor of Ethiopia; and in
the fourth to other princes in the East. No importunities of the king or his
officers could prevail on the saint to accept of any provisions or necessaries,
except a few books for the use of converts. Nor would he consent to have a
servant, saying that as long as he had the use of his two hands he never would
take one. When he was told that it would be unbecoming to see an apostolic
legate dressing his own victuals and washing his own linen on the deck, he said
he could give no scandal so long as he did no ill. The saint had two companions
to the Indies, F. Paul de Camarino, an Italian Jesuit, and Francis Mansilla, a
Portuguese, who was not yet in priest's orders.

The saint set sail on the 7th of April in the year 1541, the thirty-sixth
year of his age, on board the admiral's vessel, which carried Don Martin Alfonso
de Sousa, General-Governor of the Indies, who went with five ships to take
possession of his government. The admiral's vessel contained at least a thousand
persons, whom Francis considered as committed to his care. He catechized the
sailors, preached every Sunday before the main-mast, took care of the sick,
converted his cabin into an infirmary, lay on the deck, and lived on charity
during the whole voyage, though the governor was very urgent with him to eat at
his table, or accept of a regular supply of food from his kitchen; but he always
answered that he was a poor religious man, and that having made a vow of
poverty, he was resolved to keep it. He, indeed, received the dishes which the
governor sent him from his table, but divided the meat among those who had most
need. He composed differences, quelled murmuring, checked swearing and gaming,
and took the utmost care to remove all disorders. Bad actions he reproved with
so much authority that nobody resisted him, and with so much sweetness and
tender love that no one was offended at him. The insufferable colds of Cape Verd,
the heats of Guinea, the stench of the fresh waters, and the putrefaction of
their flesh provisions under the line, produced pestilential fevers and violent
scurviest After five months of perpetual navigation and doubling the Cape of
Good Hope, they arrived at Mozambique, on the eastern coast of Africa, about the
end of August, and there they wintered. The inhabitants are mostly Mohammedans
and trade with the Arabs and Ethiopians; but the Portuguese have settlements
among them. The air is very unwholesome, and Xavier himself fell sick there, but
was almost recovered when the admiral again put to sea in a fresh vessel which
made better sail, on the 15th of March in 1542. In three days they arrived at
Melinda, a town of the Saracens, in Africa. Leaving this place, after a few
days' sail they touched at the isle of Socotora, over against the strait of
Mecca. Thence, crossing the sea of Arabia and India, they landed at Goa on the
6th of May, in 1542, in the thirteenth month from their setting out from Lisbon.

After St. Francis was landed he went immediately to the hospital, and there
took his lodging; but would not enter upon his missionary functions till he had
paid his respects to the Bishop of Goa, whose name was John d'Albuquerque, and
who was a most virtuous prelate. The saint presented to him the briefs of Paul
III, declared that he pretended not to use them without his approbation, and
casting himself at his feet, begged his blessing. The bishop was struck with the
venerable air of sanctity that appeared in his countenance and deportment,
raised him up, kissed the briefs, and promised to support him by his episcopal
authority, which he failed not to do. To call down the blessing of heaven on his
labours, St. Francis consecrated most of the night to prayer. The situation in
which religion then was in those parts was such as called forth his zeal and his
tears. Among the Portuguese, revenge, ambition, avarice, usury, and debauchery
seemed to have extinguished in many the sentiments of their holy religion; the
sacraments were neglected; there were not four preachers in all the Indies; nor
any priests without the walls of Goal The infidels resembled rather beasts than
men, and the few who were come over to the faith not being supported by
competent instructions, nor edified by example, relapsed into their ancient
manners and superstitions. Such was the deplorable situation of those countries
when St. Francis Xavier appeared among them as a new star to enlighten so many
infidel nations. So powerful was the word of God in his mouth, and such the
fruit of his zeal, that in the space of ten years he established the empire of
Jesus Christ in a new world. Nothing more sensibly afflicted him on his arrival
at Goa, than the scandalous deportment of the Christians, who lived in direct
opposition to the Gospel which they professed and, by their manners alienated
the infidels from the faith; he therefore thought it would be best to open his
mission with them. In order to compass a general reformation, he began by
instructing them in the principles of religion, and forming the youth to the
practice of sincere piety. Having spent the morning in assisting and comforting
the distressed in the hospitals and prisons, he walked through all the streets
of Goa, with a bell in his hand, summoning all masters, for the love of God, to
send their children and slaves to catechism. The little children gathered
together in crowds about him, and he led them to the church and taught them the
creed and practices of devotion, and impressed on their tender minds strong
sentiments of piety and religion. By the modesty and devotion of the youth, the
whole town began to change its face and the most abandoned sinners began to
blush at vice. After some time, the saint preached in public and made his visits
to private houses; and the sweetness of his behaviour and words, and his
charitable concern for the souls of his neighbours were irresistible. Sinners
were struck with the horror of their crimes; usurious bonds were cancelled,
restitution was made of unjust gains, slaves who had been unjustly acquired were
set at liberty, concubines dismissed or lawfully married, and families were well
regulated.

The reformation of the whole city of Goa was accomplished in half a year,
when the saint was informed that, on the coast of La Pescaria, or the Pearl
Fishery, which is extended from Cape Comorin to the isle of Manar, on the
eastern side of the peninsula, there were certain people called Paravas, that
is, fishers, who some time ago, in order to please the Portuguese who had
succoured them against the Moors, had caused themselves to be baptized, but for
want of instructions retained their superstitions and vices. Xavier had by this
time got a little acquaintance with the Malabar language, which is spoken on
that coast, and taking with him two young ecclesiastics who understood it
competently well, embarked in October, in 1542, and sailed to Cape Comorin,
which faces the isle of Ceylon and is about six hundred miles from Goal Here St.
Francis went into a village full of idolaters and preached Jesus Christ to them,
but the inhabitants told him they could not change their religion without the
leave of their lord. Their obstinacy, however, yielded to the force of miracles
by which God was pleased to manifest his truth to them. A woman who had been
three days in the pains of childbirth, without being eased by any remedies or
prayers of the Brahmins, was immediately delivered and recovered upon being
instructed in the faith and baptized by St. Francis, as he himself relates in a
letter to St. Ignatius.[1] Upon this miracle not only that family, but most of
the chief persons of the country listened to his doctrine, and heartily embraced
the faith, having obtained the leave of their prince. The servant of God
proceeded to the Pearl Coast, set himself first to instruct and confirm those
who had been formerly baptized; and, to succeed in this undertaking, he was at
some pains to make himself more perfectly master of the Malabar tongue. Then he
preached to those Paravas to whom the name of Christ was till that time unknown;
and so great were the multitudes which he baptized, that sometimes by the bare
fatigue of administering that sacrament, he was scarce able to move his arm,
according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe. To make the
children comprehend and retain the catechism, he taught them to recite with him
some little prayer upon each question or article. Every lesson or instruction he
began with the "Our Father," and ended with the "Hail,
Mary." Diseases seem to have been never so frequent on that coast as at
that time; the people had almost all recourse to St. Francis for their cure, or
that of some friend; and great numbers recovered their health, either by being
baptized or by invoking the name of Jesus. The saint frequently sent some young
neophyte with his crucifix, beads, or reliquary to touch the sick, after having
recited with them the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Commandments; and the sick, by
declaring unfeignedly that they believed in Christ and desired to be baptized,
recovered their health. The process of the saint's canonization makes mention of
four dead persons to whom God restored life at this time by the ministry of his
servant. The first was a catechist who had been stung by a serpent of that kind
whose stings are always mortal. The second was a child who was drowned in a pit.
The third and fourth a young man and maid whom a pestilential fever had carried
off. Incredible were the labours of the saint. His food was the same as that of
the poorest people, rice and water. His sleep was but three hours a night at
most, and that in a fisher's cabin on the ground. The remainder of the night he
passed with God or with his neighbour. In the midst of the hurry of his external
employments, he ceased not to converse interiorly with God, who bestowed on him
such an excess of interior spiritual delights that he was often obliged to
desire the divine goodness to moderate them; as he testified in a letter to St.
Ignatius and his brethren at Rome, though written in general terms and in the
third person. "I am accustomed," says he,[2] "often to hear one
labouring in this vineyard cry out to God: O my Lord, give me not so much joy
and comfort in this life; or, if by an excess of mercy, thou wilt heap it upon
me, take me to thyself and make me partaker of thy glory. For he who has once in
his interior feeling tasted thy sweetness, must necessarily find life too bitter
so long as he is deprived of the sight of Thee."

He had laboured about fifteen months in the conversion of the Paravas when,
toward the close of the year 1543, he was obliged to return to Goa to procure
assistants. The seminary of the faith which had been founded there for the
education of young Indians, was committed to his care and put into the hands of
the Society. The following year he returned to the Paravas with a supply of
evangelical labourers, Indians as well as Europeans, whom he stationed in
different towns; and some he carried with him into the kingdom of Travancore
where, as he testifies in one of his letters, he baptized ten thousand Indians
with his own hand in one month, and sometimes a whole village received the
sacrament of regeneration in one day. When the holy man first penetrated into
the inland provinces of the Indians, being wholly ignorant of the language of
the people, he could only baptize children and serve the sick, who, by signs,
could signify what they wanted, as he wrote to F. Mansilla. Whilst he exercised
his zeal in Travancore, God first communicated to him the gift of tongues,
according to the relation of a young Portuguese of Coimbra, named Vaz, who
attended him on many of his journeys. He spoke very well the language of those
barbarians without having learned it, and had no need of an interpreter when he
instructed them. He sometimes preached to five or six thousand persons together
in some spacious plain. The saint narrowly escaped the snares which were
sometimes laid by Brahmins and others to take away his life; and when the
Badages, a tribe of savages and public robbers, having plundered many other
places, made inroads into Travancore, he marched up to the enemy with a crucifix
in his hand, at the head of a small troop of fervent Christians and, with a
commanding air, bade them, in the name of the living God, not to pass further,
but to return the way they came. His words cast such a terror into the minds of
the leaders who were at the head of the barbarians, that they stood some time
confounded and without motion; then retired in disorder and quitted the country.
This action procured St. Francis the protection of the King of Travancore and
the surname of the Great Father. As the saint was preaching one day at Coulon, a
village in Travancore near Cape Comorin, perceiving that few were converted by
his discourse, he made a short prayer that God would honour the blood and name
of his beloved Son by softening the hearts of the most obdurate. Then he bade
some of the people open the grave of a man who was buried the day before, near
the place where he preached; and the body was beginning to putrefy with a
noisome scent, which he desired the bystanders to observe. Then falling on his
knees, after a short prayer, he commanded the dead man in the name of the living
God to arise. At these words the dead man arose and appeared not only living but
vigorous and in perfect health. All who were present were so struck with this
evidence that, throwing themselves at the saint's feet, they demanded baptism.
The holy man also raised to life, on the same coast, a young man who was a
Christian, whose corpse he met as it was being carried to the grave. To preserve
the memory of this wonderful action the parents of the deceased, who were
present, erected a great cross on the place where the miracle was wrought. These
miracles made so great impressions on the people, that the whole kingdom of
Travancore was subjected to Christ in a few months, except the king and some of
his courtiers.

The reputation of the miracles of St. Francis reached the isle of Manar,
which sent deputies to St. Francis entreating him to visit their country. The
saint could not at that time leave Travancore, but sent a zealous missionary by
whom many were instructed and baptized. The King of Jafanatapan, in the northern
par. of the neighbouring beautiful and pleasant isle of Ceylon, hearing of this
progress of the faith, fell upon Manar with an army and slew six or seven
hundred Christians who, when asked the question, boldly confessed Christ. This
tyrant was afterwards slain by the Portuguese, when they invaded Ceylon. The
saint, after he had made a journey to Cochin upon business, visited Manar, and
settled there a numerous church; in a journey of devotion, which he took to
Meliapor to implore the intercession of the Apostle St. Thomas, he converted
many dissolute livers in that place. Afterwards, intending to pass to the island
of Macassar, he sailed to Malacca, a famous mart in the peninsula beyond the
Ganges, to which all the Indies and also the Arabs, Persians, Chinese, and
Japonians, resorted for trade. The saint arrived here on the 2sth of September
1545 and, by the irresistible force of his zeal and miracles, reformed the
debauched manners of the Christians, and converted many pagans and Mohammedans.
St. Francis, finding no opportunity of sailing to Macassar, passed the isles of
Bonda, which are some of the Spice Islands. Landing in the island of Amboina, he
baptized a great part of the inhabitants. Having preached in other islands, he
made a considerable stay in the Moluccas, and, though the inhabitants were an
untractable people, he brought great numbers to the truth. Thence he passed to
the Isle del Moro, the inhabitants of which he gained to Christ. In this mission
he suffered much; but from it wrote to St. Ignatius, "The dangers to which
I am exposed and pains I take for the interest of God alone, are the
inexhaustible springs of spiritual joys; insomuch, that these islands, bare of
all worldly necessaries, are the places in the world for a man to lose his sight
with the excess of weeping; but they are tears of joy. I remember not ever to
have tasted such interior delights; and these consolations of the soul are so
pure, so exquisite, and so constant, that they take from me all sense of my
corporal sufferings." The saint, returning towards Goa, visited the islands
on the road where he had preached, and arrived at Malacca in 1547. In the
beginning of the year 1548 he landed in Ceylon, where he converted great
numbers, with two kings.

At Malacca, a Japanese named Angeroo, addressed himself to the saint.
Kaempfer tells us that he had killed a man in his own country and, to save his
life, made his escape in a Portuguese ship. All agree that he was rich and of a
noble extraction, and about thirty-five years of age; and, that. being disturbed
in mind, with remorse and terrors of conscience, he was advised by certain
Christians to have recourse to the holy St. Francis for comfort. The saint
poured the mildest balm into his wounded heart and gave him assurances that he
should find repose of mind, but must first seek God in his true religion. The
Japanese was charmed with his discourses, and as he had by that time acquired
some knowledge of the Portuguese language, was instructed in the faith and
engaged by St. Francis to embark with his attendants and go to Goa, whither he
himself was directing his course, but taking a round. In the straits of Ceylon
the ship which carried the saint was overtaken with a most dreadful tempest,
insomuch that the sailors threw all their merchandise overboard, and the pilot,
not being able to hold the rudder, abandoned the vessel to the fury of the
waves. For three days and three nights the mariners had nothing but death before
their eyes. St. Francis, after hearing the confessions of all on board, fell on
his knees before his crucifix and continued there, wholly taken up and lost to
all things but to God. The ship at last struck against the sands of Ceylon, and
the mariners gave themselves up for lost, when Xavier, coming out of his cabin,
took the line and plummet, as if it had been to fathom the sea and, letting them
down to the bottom of the water, pronounced these words, "Great God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, have mercy on us." At the same moment the
vessel stopped and the wind ceased. After which they pursued their voyage, and
at Cochin on the 21st of January 1548.

The saint, leaving Cochin, visited the villages of the coast of the Pearl
Fishery, and was much edified with the fervour of the converts; he made some
stay at Manapar, near Cape Comorin, passed over to the isle of Ceylon, where he
converted the King of Cande, and arrived at Goa on the 20th of March 1548. There
he instructed Angeroo and many others, and took a resolution to go to Japan. In
the meantime, he applied himself more than ever to the exercises of an interior
life, as it were to recover new strength; for it is the custom of all
apostolical men, by the communications which they have with God, to refresh
themselves and repair their interior spirit amidst the pains which they take
with their neighbour. During this retirement in the garden of St. Paul's
college, sometimes walking, at other times in a little hermitage which was there
set up, he cried out, "It is enough, my Lord; it is enough." And he
sometimes opened his cassock before his breast, declaring he was not able to
support the abundance of heavenly consolations. At the same time he signified
that he rather prayed that God would reserve those pleasures for another time,
and here would not spare to inflict on him any pains or sufferings in this
present world. F. Gaspar Barzia and four other Jesuits, arrived at that time at
Goa from Europe, whom the saint stationed, and then set out for Malacca,
intending to proceed to Japan. After a short stay at Malacca, he went on board a
Chinese vessel and arrived at Cangoxima, in the kingdom of Saxuma, in Japan, on
the 15Th of August 1549, having with him Angeroo, who had been baptized with two
of his domestics at Goa, and was called Paul of the holy faith.

The language of the Japanese seems, in the judgment of Kaempfer, to be a
primitive or original tongue. St. Francis learned certain elements of it from
his convert during his voyage, and stayed forty days at Cangoxima, lodging at
Paul's house, whose wife, daughter, and other relations he in the meantime
converted and baptized. The same language is used all over the empire, but the
words are differently accented when addressed to courtiers or persons of rank,
and when to merchants and soldiers, and again differently to the vulgar. During
these forty days, St. Francis, by unwearied application made such progress in it
as to translate into Japanese the apostle's creed and an exposition of it, which
he had composed, and which he got by heart in this language, and then began to
preach; but was first introduced by Paul to the King of Saxuma, whose residence
was six leagues from Cangoxima.

After a year spent at Cangoxima with his usual success, the saint in 1550
went to Firando, the capital of another petty kingdom; for the King of Saxuma,
incensed at the Portuguese because they had abandoned his port to carry on their
trade chiefly at Firando, had withdrawn the licence he had granted the saint,
and began to persecute the Christians. The converts, however, persevered steady,
and declared they were ready to suffer banishment or death rather than deny
Christ; and St. Francis recommended them to Paul, and left in their hands an
ample exposition of the creed and the life of our Saviour translated entire from
the Gospels, which he had caused to be printed in Japanese characters. He took
with him his two companions, who were Jesuits, and carried on his back,
according to his custom, all the necessary utensils for the sacrifice of the
mass. The saint, on his way to Firando, preached in the fortress of Ekandono,
the prince of which was a vassal to the King of Saxuma. The prince's steward
embraced the faith with several others, and to his care Xavier recommended the
rest at his departure; and he assembled them daily in his apartments to recite
with them the litany and prayers and, on Sundays, read to them the Christian
doctrine: and so edifying was the behaviour of these Christians, that many
others desired to join them after the departure of their apostle; and the King
of Saxuma, moved by their edifying conduct, became again the protector of our
holy religion. At Firando, Xavier baptized more infidels in twenty days than he
had done at Cangoxima in a whole year. These converts he left under the care of
one of the Jesuits that accompanied him, and set out for Meaco with one Jesuit
and two Japanese Christians. They went by sea to Facata, and from thence
embarked for Amanguchi, the capital of the kingdom of Naugato, famous for the
richest silver mines in Japan. Our saint preached here in public, and before the
king and his court; but the Gospel at that time took no root in this debauched
city, the number which the saint gained there being inconsiderable, though a
single soul is, indeed, a great acquisition.

Xavier, having made above a month's abode at Amanguchi and gathered small
fruit of his labours except affronts, continued his journey towards Meaco with
his three companions. It was towards the end of December, and the four servants
of God suffered much on the road from heavy rains, great drifts of snow,
pinching cold, torrents, and hideous mountains and forests; and they travelled
barefoot. In passing through towns and villages, Xavier was accustomed to read
some part of his catechism to the people and to preach. Not finding a proper
word in the Japanese language to express the sovereign Deity, and fearing lest
the idolaters should confound God with some of their idols, he told them that
never having had any knowledge of the true infinite God, they were not able to
express his name, but that the Portuguese called him Deos; and this word he
repeated with so much action and such a tone of voice, that he made even the
pagans sensible what veneration is due to that sacred name. In two several towns
he narrowly escaped being stoned for speaking against the gods of the country.
He arrived at Meaco, with his companions, in February 1551. The Dairi, Cubosama,
and Saso (or high priest) then kept their court there; but the saint could not
procure an audience even of the Saso without paying for that honour a hundred
thousand caixes, which amount to six hundred French crowns, a sum which he had
not to give. A civil war, kindled against the Cubosama, filled the city with
such tumults and alarms that Xavier saw it to be impossible to do any good there
at that time, and after a fortnight's stay returned to Amanguchi. Perceiving
that he was rejected at court upon the account of his mean appearance, he bought
a rich suit and hired two or three servants; and in this equipage waited on the
king, to whom he made a present of a little striking-clock and some other
things. Thus he obtained his protection and preached with such fruit that he
baptized three thousand persons in that city, with whom he left two Jesuits who
were his companions, to give the finishing to their instruction. At Amanguchi
God restored to St. Francis the gift of tongues, for he preached often to the
Chinese merchants who traded there in their mother-tongue, which he had never
learned.

St. Francis, recommending the new Christians here to two fathers whom he left
behind, left Amanguchi toward the middle of September, in 1551, and, with two
Japanese Christians who had suffered with joy the confiscation of their goods
for changing their religion, travelled on foot to Fuceo, the residence of the
King of Bungo, who was very desirous to see him, and gave him a most gracious
reception. Here the saint publicly confuted the Bonzas who, upon motives of
interest, everywhere strenuously opposed his preaching, though even among them
some were converted. The saint's public sermons and private conversations had
their due effect among the people, and vast multitudes desired to be instructed
and baptized. Among others the king himself was convinced of the truth, and
renounced those impurities which are abhorred by nature, but remained still
wedded to some sensual pleasures, on which account he could not be admitted to
the sacrament of regeneration till, after some succeeding years, having made
more serious reflections on the admonitions of the saint, he reformed his life
altogether and was baptized. Our saint took leave of this king and embarked to
return to India on the 20th of November 1551, having continued in Japan two
years and four months. To cultivate this growing mission he sent thither three
Jesuits, who were shortly followed by others. It had been often objected to him
that the learned and wise men in China had not embraced the faith of Christ.
This circumstance first inspired him with an earnest desire that the name of
Christ might be glorified in that flourishing empire; and, full of a zealous
project of undertaking that great enterprise, he left Japan. In this voyage the
ship in which he sailed was rescued from imminent danger of shipwreck in a storm
by his prayers; and a shallop, in which were fifteen persons belonging to the
ship from which it had been separated by the same tempest, was saved by the same
means, according to his confident and repeated prediction, the passengers and
mariners in it seeming all the way to have seen Xavier sitting at the helm and
steering it. Many other clear predictions of the saint are recorded. At Malacca
he was received with the greatest joy that can be imagined, and he immediately
set himself to contrive how he might compass his intended journey to China. The
greatest difficulty was, that besides the ill-understanding which was betwixt
China and Portugal, it was forbidden to strangers on pain of death, or of
perpetual imprisonment, to set foot in that kingdom. To remove this obstacle St.
Francis discoursed with the old governor of Malacca, Don Pedro de Sylva, and
with the new one, Don Alvarez d'Atayda, and it was agreed that an embassy might
be sent in the name of the King of Portugal to China to settle a commerce, with
which the saint might with safety land in that kingdom. In the meantime the
saint set out for Goa.

Xavier reached Goa in the beginning of February, and having paid a visit to
the hospitals, went to the College of St. Paul where he cured a dying man. The
missionaries whom he had dispersed before his departure, had spread the gospel
on every side. F. Gaspar Barzia had converted almost the whole city and island
of Ormuz. Christianity flourished exceedingly on the coast of the pearl fishery,
and had made great progress at Cochin, Coulan, Bazain, Meliapor, in the Moluccas,
the isles of Moro, &c. The King of Tanor, whose dominions lay on the coast
of Malabar, had been baptized at Goal The King of Trichenamalo, one of the
sovereigns of Ceylon, also embraced the faith. The progress of the faith in many
other places was such as gave the greatest subject of joy to the holy man. But
F. Antonio Gomez, a great preacher and scholar, whom the saint had appointed
rector at Goa, had made such changes and innovations, even in the domestic
discipline of the Society, that the saint was obliged to dismiss him from the
Order. Xavier appointed F. Barzia, a person of eminent piety, rector of Goa and
vice-provincial, sent new preachers into all the missions on this side the
Ganges, and obtained of the viceroy, Don Alphonso de Norogna, a commission for
his good friend, James Pereya, to go on an embassy to China. Having settled all
affairs at Goa, he made the most tender and ardent exhortations to his religious
brethren, then leaving F. Barzia, vice-provincial, set sail on the 14th of April
in I 552, and landing at Malacca, found the town afflicted with a most
contagious pestilential fever. This he had foretold before he arrived; and no
sooner was he come on shore, but running from street to street he carried the
poor that lay languishing up and down to the hospitals, and attended them with
his companions. At that time he restored to life a young man named Francis
Ciavos, who afterwards took the habit of the Society. When the mortality had
almost ceased, the saint treated about the embassy to China with the Governor of
Malacca, on whom Don Alphonso de Norogna (the fifth Viceroy and seventeenth
Governor of the Indies) had reposed the trust of that affair. Don Alvarez
d'Atayda Gama had lately succeeded his good brother, Don Pedro de Sylva Gama, in
the government of Malacca. This officer, out of a pique to Pereyra, crossed the
project of the embassy and, when St. Francis urged the authority of the king and
the command of the viceroy, Alvarez flew into a rage and treated him with the
most injurious language. The saint ceased not for a whole month to solicit the
governor, and at length threatened him with excommunication in case he persisted
thus to oppose the propagation of the gospel. Upon this occasion the saint
produced the briefs of Paul III, by which he was appointed apostolic nuncio,
which, out of humility, he had kept a profound secret during ten years that were
expired since his coming to the Indies. The governor continued to laugh at the
threats, so that the bishop's grand vicar at length fulminated an
excommunication against him in the name of Xavier who, seeing this design
utterly destroyed, determined to go on board of a Portuguese ship that was
setting sail for the isle of Sancian, a small barren island near Macao, on the
coast of China. This governor was afterwards deposed for extortions and other
crimes, by an order of the king, and sent in chains to Goal St. Francis during
this voyage wrought several miracles and converted certain Mohammedan
passengers, and on the twenty-third day after the ship's departure from Malacca,
arrived at Sancian, where the Chinese permitted the Portuguese to come and buy
their commodities. When the project of the embassy had failed, St. Francis had
sent the three Jesuits he had taken for his companions into Japan, and retained
with him only a brother of the Society (who was a Chinese and had taken the
habit of Goa) and a young Indian. He hoped to find means with only two
companions to land secretly in China. The merchants at Sancian endeavoured to
persuade him that his design was impracticable, all setting before his eyes the
rigorous laws of the government of China, that all the ports were narrowly
guarded by vigilant officers, who were neither to be circumvented nor bribed,
and that the least he could expect was scourging and perpetual imprisonment. The
saint was not to be deterred; and answered all these and many other reasons
saying, that to be terrified by such difficulties from undertaking the work of
God would be incomparably worse than all the evils with which they threatened
him. He therefore took his measures for the voyage of China, and first of all
provided himself with a good interpreter; for the Chinese he had brought with
him from Goa was wholly ignorant of the language which is spoken at the court,
and had almost forgotten the common idiom of the vulgar. Then the saint hired a
Chinese merchant called Capoceca, to land him by night on some part of the coast
where no houses were in view; for which service Xavier engaged to pay him two
hundred pardos, and bound himself by oath that no torments should ever bring him
to confess either the name or house of him who had set him on shore.

The Portuguese at Sancian, fearing this attempt might be revenged by the
Chinese on them, endeavoured to traverse the design. Whilst the voyage was
deferred Xavier fell sick, and when the Portuguese vessels were all gone except
one, was reduced to extreme want of all necessaries. Also, the Chinese
interpreter whom he had hired recalled his word. Yet the servant of God, who
soon recovered of his illness, did not lose courage; and hearing that the King
of Siam was preparing a magnificent embassy to the Emperor of China, he resolved
to use his best endeavours to obtain leave to accompany the ambassador of Siam.
But God was pleased to accept his will in this good work and took him to
himself. A fever seized the saint a second time on the 20th of November, and at
the same time he had a clear knowledge of the day and hour of his death, which
he openly declared to a friend, who afterwards made an authentic deposition of
it by a solemn oath. From that moment he perceived in himself a strange disgust
of all earthly things, and thought on nothing but that celestial country whither
God was calling him. Being much weakened by his fever, he retired into the
vessel which was the common hospital of the sick, that he might die in poverty.
But the tossing of the ship giving him an extraordinary headache, and hindering
him from applying himself to God as he desired, the day following he requested
that he might be set on shore again, which was done. He was exposed on the sands
to a piercing north wind; till George Alvarez, out of compassion, caused him to
be carried into his cabin, which afforded a very poor shelter, being open on
every side. The saint's distemper, accompanied with an acute pain in his side
and a great oppression, increased daily; he was twice blooded, but the unskilful
surgeon both times pricked the tendon, by which accident the patient fell into
swooning convulsions. His disease was attended with a horrible nauseousness,
insomuch that he could take no nourishment. But his countenance was always
serene and his soul enjoyed a perpetual calm. Sometimes he lifted up his eyes to
heaven, and at other times fixed them on his crucifix, entertaining divine
conversations with his God in which he shed abundance of tears. At last, on the
and of December which fell on Friday, having his eyes all bathed in tears and
fixed with great tenderness of soul upon his crucifix, he pronounced these
words, "In thee, O Lord, I have hoped; I shall not be confounded for
ever"; and, at the same instant, transported with celestial joy which
appeared upon his countenance, he sweetly gave up the ghost in 1552. Though he
was only forty-six years old, of which he had passed ten and a half in the
Indies, his continual labours had made him grey betimes, and in the last year of
his life he was grizzled almost to whiteness. His corpse was interred on Sunday,
being laid after the Chinese fashion, in a large chest, which was filled up with
unslacked lime, to the end that the flesh being consumed, the bones might be
carried to Goal On the 7th of February, in 1553, the grave was opened to see if
the flesh was consumed; but the lime being taken off the face, it was found
ruddy and fresh coloured like that of a man who is in a sweet repose. The body
was in like manner whole, and the natural moisture uncorrupted; and the flesh
being a little cut in the thigh near the knee, the blood was seen to run from
the wound. The sacerdotal habits in which the saint was buried were in no way
endamaged by the lime; and the holy corpse exhaled an odour so fragrant and
delightful that the most exquisite perfumes came nothing near it. The sacred
remains were carried into the ship and brought to Malacca on the 22nd of March,
where it was received with great honour. The pestilence which for some weeks had
laid waste the town, on a sudden ceased. The body was interred in a damp
churchyard; yet in August was found entire, fresh, and still exhaling a sweet
odour, and being honourably put into a ship, was translated to Goa, where it was
received and placed in the church in the college of St. Paul on the 15th of
March, in 1554; upon which occasion several blind persons recovered their sight
and others, sick of palsies and other diseases, their health, and the use of
their limbs. By order of King John III a verbal process of the life and miracles
of the man of God was made with the utmost accuracy at Goa and in other parts of
the Indies. Many miracles were wrought, through his intercession, in several
parts of the Indies and Europe, confessed by several Protestants; and Tavernier
calls him the St. Paul and the true apostle of the Indies. St. Francis was
beatified by Paul V in 1554, and canonized by Gregory XV in 1662. By an order of
John V, King of Portugal, the Archbishop of Goa, attended by the viceroy, the
Marquis of Castle Nuovo, in 1744, performed a visitation of the relics of St.
Francis Xavier; at which time the body was found without the least bad smell and
seemed environed with a kind of shining brightness; and the face, hands, breast,
and feet had not suffered the least alteration or symptom of corruption.[3] In
1747 the same king obtained a brief of Benedict XIV, by which St. Francis Xavier
is honoured with the title of patron and protector of all the countries in the
East Indies.

Holy zeal may properly be said to have formed the character of St. Francis
Xavier. Consumed with an insatiable thirst of the salvation of souls and of the
dilatation of the honour and kingdom of Christ on earth, he ceased not with
tears and prayers to conjure the Father of all men not to suffer those to perish
whom he had created in his own divine image, made capable of knowing and loving
him, and redeemed with the adorable blood of his Son; as is set forth in the
excellent prayer of this saint, printed in many books of devotion. For this end
the saint, like another St. Paul, made himself all to all, and looked upon all
fatigues, sufferings, and dangers, as his pleasure and gain. In transports of
zeal he invited and pressed others to labour in the conversion of infidels and
sinners. In one of his letters to Europe, he wrote as follows:[4] " I have
often thoughts to run over all the universities of Europe, and principally that
of Paris, and to cry aloud to those who abound more in learning than in charity,
'Ah! how many souls are lost to heaven through your neglect!' Many, without
doubt, would be moved, would make a spiritual retreat and give themselves the
leisure for meditating on heavenly things. They would renounce their passions
and, trampling under foot all worldly vanities, would put themselves in a
condition of following the motions of the divine will. Then they would say,
Behold me in readiness, O Lord. How much more happily would these learned men
then liver With how much more assurance would they die! Millions of idolaters
might be easily converted if there were more preachers who would sincerely mind
the interests of Jesus Christ and not their own." But the saint required
missionaries that are prudent, charitable, mild, perfectly disinterested, and of
so great purity of manners, that no occasions of sin weaken their constancy.[5]
This saint was himself a model of such preachers, formed upon the spirit of the
apostles. So absolute a master he was of his passions that he knew not what it
was to have the least motion of choler and impatience, and in all events was
perfectly resigned to the divine will; from whence proceeded an admirable
tranquillity of soul, a perpetual cheerfulness, and equality of countenance. He
rejoiced in afflictions and sufferings, and said that one who had once
experienced the sweetness of suffering for Christ, will ever after find it worse
than death to live without a cross.[6] By humility the saint was always ready to
follow the advice of others, and attributed all blessings to their prayers which
he most earnestly implored.